A home repair show that helps Coloradans recover from shady contractors is accused of hiring just such a contractor for a project in Larkspur.
“Rico to the Rescue,” which has run for two seasons on HGTV, follows local homebuilder Rico León as he visits abandoned or poorly built home projects and finds solutions.
“When it comes to new renovation, people underbid, overpromise and then (homeowners) get stuck in the middle,” León, whose legal name is Andrew, told The Denver Post in 2023.
Jon Schauer, a captain with the Denver Fire Department, was building his dream house south of Castle Rock when he had a tiff with a fellow firefighter who was helping him for free. Schauer then tried unsuccessfully to finish the job on his own until, in spring 2023, he was invited on the show by Watt Pictures, the New York studio behind “Rico to the Rescue.”
The result was episode nine of season two, titled “Burying the Hatchet.” In it, León describes his goals as twofold: building Schauer’s dream home, and repairing Schauer’s friendship with a man named Jim, the firefighter and pro bono builder who had a falling out with him.
“I think what we’re dealing with,” the host said at one point, “is two stubborn people.”
On the construction side, Watt and León hired Precision Custom Builders, a Centennial company, to rescue the project. That was a curious choice, according to Schauer, because Precision and its owner Sia Zadeh had previously been on “Rico to the Rescue.”
“On that occasion,” Schauer notes, “Precision and Zadeh played the role of failing contractor.”
With a budget of $187,000 and 10 weeks to build before fall 2023 turned to winter, León and Zadeh finished an industrial farmhouse design and Schauer patched up his friendship. When Schauer saw the finished project for the first time, he was full of praise.
“Wow! No way. You nailed it. Everything here is me and what I had wanted and what I had envisioned, if I could have envisioned something this great,” he said as he walked inside.
“Everything ended the way I hoped it would,” Schauer said as the episode closed. “Friendships are back together, I have my dream. I don’t know what else I could ask for.”
But on Nov. 4, Schauer filed a lawsuit against León, Watt Pictures, Precision and Zadeh. In it, he lists dozens of supposed construction defects at his dream house, including a fireplace installed backwards, missing smoke alarms, an unsafe back deck, missing bathroom tiles, improperly installed toilets, defective windows and doors, and others.
León and Watt Pictures did not return requests for comment — but Zadeh quickly did.
“Jon Schauer is a crook,” the contractor said. “Me personally and the show, we did not take any steps or do anything without Jon’s consent, and that’s all recorded. Everything is recorded. That is the funny part about all of this. And what he is claiming is absolutely hilarious.”
Zadeh said that Watt Pictures threatened to cancel the Larkspur episode on several occasions and demand a refund of the $275,000 that “Rico to the Rescue” spent remodeling Schauer’s house “because he was just the biggest pain in the butt to deal with” last year.
“I went above and beyond for that man, to the point of actually stepping in front of production and producers and saying, ‘Let’s just bite our tongue, let’s just finish the episode and move on,’” Zadeh said. (Through his attorneys, Schauer did not answer requests for comment.)
A visitor to Schauer’s Instagram page may be surprised to hear he is dissatisfied with his time on HGTV. His profile touts his appearance on “Rico to the Rescue” and includes a video in which he gifts León a custom cowboy hat “as a thank you for rescuing his house.”
“My boy right here just took care of me,” León said as he half-hugged Schauer in the video. “Thank you so much. This is a great gift, seriously. I’m a hard guy to get a gift for.”
“It looks good on you,” Schauer said in response. “I still owe you a horseback ride too.”
There are discrepancies between the claims of Schauer and Zadeh and the episode that HGTV viewers saw. For example, in the show it is said that the home’s back deck did not fit within the project’s budget and therefore had to be built by Schauer’s firefighter friends. But Schauer says it was shoddily built by Zadeh’s company and Zadeh said he built it professionally.
“He didn’t pay a single cent for it. Not one penny,” the contractor says of Schauer. “It’s a $60,000-$70,000 deck that I essentially did for him because he was refusing to pay for it and the deck was falling apart and the show — it didn’t look good on TV. So, I took it upon myself.”
Schauer also alleges that Zadeh went beyond the scope of a county permit. Zadeh said it was Schauer who misrepresented what permit he had acquired for the project.
“He got on the show and it wasn’t until halfway through that we saw the permit he had and his permit was for something completely different,” Zadeh says. “That was actually one of the reasons why the show almost pulled his episode, because he lied on his application.”
The contractor claimed that he spent $150,000 of his own money to finish the episode, which provided him with marketing. He plans to countersue Schauer and expects Watt Pictures will as well. Zadeh said that lawsuits from unreasonable homeowners are common.
“This is one of those guys that thinks this is a payday for him, as if what he got isn’t enough.”